Friday, 16 January 2015

I just can't seem to make any sound....

Apparently the writers of Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everyone” made about £500,000 from that song last Christmas alone. That’s not too shabby and at least it’s a song that’s definitely about Christmas. This song is also on just about every single compilation of Christmas songs, and it’s basically an anti-war song that makes a very fleeting mention of the season with the addition of some chiming bells. Apparently that’s all it took to get it onto Christmas playlists forever. Jona Lewie has said that it accounts for more than half of all his income, apparently around £15k a year. Not too shabby. No wonder East 17 put those bells onto “Stay Another Day”… £30k a year for that little piece of foresight by Tony Mortimer. Nice one, Tony.

I’m not entirely sure exactly how much crossover C and I actually have in our music tastes. She likes classical music and she’s got a load of stuff from my iTunes on her phone, but she very rarely expresses a preference and almost never buys any music. I know that she likes 50s and early 60s rock and roll, and I also know that she likes some surprisingly spiky music like White Stripes, early Kings of Leon and the Velvet Underground. Pleasingly, she also seems to very much be developing a fondness for the Arctic Monkeys. She’s always enjoyed their very Yorkshire turn of phrase, but with “AM” in particular, she really seems to enjoy the heavier, scuzzy guitar. It’s all good: it’s a great record. You’d imagine after 15 years together, I might be a little better informed about these things, but there you go.

I always think of this song when I’m skiing because of the time we skied over into Italy from La Rosiere and they were playing this on a huge PA system on the slopes. A large group of us got talked into a bundle deal at a restaurant, and were then all piled into a crappy van and driven away from the slope. We all thought we were going to die, but it actually turned out to be a delicious and astonishingly cheap meal, and the proprietor was also good enough to drop us back at the foot of the slope in his van at the end. A good day.

I think I prefer the Warren Zevon version, but there’s no accounting for what plays in my head at any given time. I don’t actually own a single recorded note by Prince. If he ever does play Glastonbury, I’ll likely be doing something else. Nothing personal though, mate.

I recently changed my ringtone from “London Calling” by The Clash to this song. It’s been a month or so, and I still haven’t quite got used to the change. Great song, mind. The jury is still out on whether or not it makes a good ringtone.

Still sounds great. I’m not a massive fan of Pharrell and I’m inclined to think he’s a bit of a prat. I’ve also never really understood the fuss about “Happy”. Still, this is a corker, innit? Nile Rodgers is a legend.

I’ve been listening an awful lot to the MP3s of the bass parts of the songs we’re doing at choir this season. They’re actually great to listen to, as well as obviously being a really good way of learning your part. It’s not very rock and roll though, is it? Even when you’re singing rock and roll songs by people like Kiss, Van Halen and Bon Jovi. I’ve also not really been listening to much music when I go running either: I’m doing a lot more running with C without headphones, and when I have been running by myself, I’ve been listening to the BBC adaptation of “Good Omens” on iPlayer. What better way to get your rock back on than by listening to Probot? RED WAR WILL FALL ON MY ENEMIES!

Part of the setlist at choir this season and entirely irresistible. I’m not even sure if “Bat Out of Hell” is on my iPod or not…. But I can tell you right now that it’s going straight on as soon as I’ve got the bass part down pat (I can’t be learning from where Meatloaf takes it, can I?). Great song and also very good fun to sing. My favourite song to sing so far at choir is actually a bit of a surprise to me as I dislike the band, but it turns out that “Who Wants to Live Forever” is a real pleasure to sing and sounds great sung in this format (although, sadly, we're not doing the "Hot Summer Night" intro bit. That would have been awesome....)

Right. That’s it. First earworms of 2015 done. Have a great weekend, y’all.